


Be Better

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Blood, Choking, Confrontations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Promises, Siblings, could be miklan hurting sylvain or their dad hurting miklan, either way, very very brief. lmk if i should make this like teen rating or smth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 08:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: Sylvain is covered in blood, and Glenn punches Miklan in the face.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Glenn Fraldarius & Miklan, Glenn Fraldarius/Miklan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 88





	Be Better

**Author's Note:**

> that's all

“Who did this?”

Sylvain sniffled and shook his head, his hazel eyes wide with fear as he looked away from Glenn. The boy’s head was covered in blood, which was dripping from his chin down onto the blankets he was huddled on. What had happened to him?

Glenn frowned, glancing at Felix, who was sitting next to his friend and holding a roll of bandages in trembling little hands.

“Fe, do you know?” Glenn asked his younger brother, placing his bloody rag on the ground and taking the bandages. Felix looked nervously at Sylvain, who was shivering as another rivulet of blood trickled down his face from under his ruddy hair.

“Um...no,” Felix whispered. Glenn tore off a segment of bandage and wrapped it carefully around Sylvain’s head. Where was Miklan? Felix had run home clinging to an injured Sylvain’s hand, begging Glenn to help him but not tell their parents. Did Miklan simply not know about this?

“Felix. Did you do this?”

“No!” Felix cried. “I’d never hurt Sylvain!” As if to prove his point, he wrapped his arms around his friend tightly. Sylvain sniffled again, nodding in faint gratitude when Glenn tucked the loose end of the bandage into the folds around his head.

“Sylvain, what happened?” Glenn questioned again, softer this time. Sylvain shook his head. He was shivering head to toe. “You can always talk to me and Felix. You know that, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” Sylvain mumbled into Felix’s arm.

Glenn watched him as he started to calm, the fire crackling in the hearth to fill the tense silence in Glenn’s bedroom. He’d have to ask for his blankets to be cleaned and changed later tonight, but for now, Sylvain was the main priority.

“Sylvain, c’mon,” Felix urged, his amber eyes fearful. “You can say.”

Sylvain looked up sheepishly at Glenn, who was kneeling before them on the rug. The young man smiled encouragingly.

“Pro...promise you won’t tell my dad?”

Glenn nodded, though he wondered why the little boy didn’t want him to say. “I promise, I won’t say a word to your parents.”

Sylvain squeezed his eyes shut, as if he was suffocating. Felix had let go of him at this point, sitting anxiously close to him, awaiting the name of the perpetrator.

“Miklan.”

Glenn’s heart stopped. Felix gasped. 

Miklan did this. He had slammed his helpless little brother’s into a cobble wall. And he had left Sylvain there for Felix to find him; or was it to die?

Sylvain was about to say something else when Glenn leapt to his feet, nearly tearing his winter cloak off his bedpost and pulling it on. 

“Glenn! Wait!” Felix cried. Glenn stepped out the door into the dark hall of the Fraldarius manor, gripping the silver handle tightly.

“Stay here.”

“You—you promised!” Sylvain wailed, his tears renewed, and Glenn shut the door, hesitating at the lock. He abandoned it when he heard Felix’s small footsteps running close behind the door, and he raced off to the stables before the two little boys could catch him.

His black horse was receiving an apple slice from one of the stablehands. Glenn excused himself and opened the gate to the young woman’s shock, and he leapt onto his steed’s back. Glenn reached for the reins, then realized that his horse was not wearing one, and he called out to the stablehand to fetch him his horse’s gear, immediately.

Glenn quickly tied his dark navy hair back as the young woman quickly prepared his horse for travel, then lashed the rains and was gone as fast as he had come, his horse and his dark cloak blending into the night.

“Go, boy. Hurry!”

Miklan was outside, holding an oil lamp that partially illuminated his face as he wandered the Gautier property. Glenn halted his horse and tied his reins to a tree, then ran towards the flickering light, dew and mud squelching under his boots. The blood pounded in his ears so vehemently that he could barely hear.

Miklan suddenly called, “Sylvain? Where are you?” and turned his lamp in Glenn’s direction. His hazel eyes widened with shock when Glenn drew back a fist and threw his whole weight into the blow, punching Miklan square in the face and sending him flying.

Miklan howled with pain, and the oil lamp clattered into the grass dewy from that afternoon’s rain. Glenn lunged at him, pinning his wrists down and kneeling on his chest, grinding a heel into Miklan’s stomach.

“What the—Glenn—”

“What is wrong with you?” Glenn spat, and he grunted as the stronger young man struggled underneath him, almost throwing him off. “How could you?”

The lamp’s feeble flame went out, leaving them shrouded in darkness. Only the faint light of the stars allowed Glenn to see the shock in Miklan’s eyes, and allowed Miklan to see the hatred and anger in Glenn’s.

“How could I what?”

“Sylvain!”

Miklan winced, clenching his fists and turning his head to the side. “That’s none of your business. Get off of me!” The young lancer succeeded in freeing one of his hands from Glenn’s grip, and Glenn slapped him across the face on the bruise forming on his cheek. Miklan cried out in pain again.

“It is my business! He was covered in blood and he was crying! Felix was terrified, too! Anything that concerns my brother and his friend concerns me.”

Miklan jerked awkwardly under Glenn, and to the swordsman’s shock, a heavy, muddy boot slammed into the back of his head; for a moment, the stars went out, and his head fell onto Miklan’s shoulder. Then, he was underneath the stronger young man, both his wrists pinned by one of Miklan’s hands. The other was around his throat.

“It doesn’t matter what I do to my brother. It won’t ever amount to what he’s done to me,” Miklan hissed, and when Glenn tried to fight, he let out a strangled yelp instead when Miklan tightened his grip around Glenn’s throat.

“M—Miklan—”

“You aren’t going to tell anyone what happened today. Or now. Got it?” Miklan sneered, and his hazel eyes were narrowed with contempt, his face an inch from Glenn’s. Yet Glenn detected a glint of fear in the lancer’s gaze.

Glenn was staring, and when he did not respond, Miklan started to push down on his throat. Glenn let out a hoarse scream, kicking at the grass and nodded feverishly until Miklan let go. The Gautier got to his feet, and the Fraldarius coughed and retched on his side, trembling and heaving for breath as he clung to handfuls of his cloak.

“Miklan,” Glenn rasped, just as he heard Miklan start to walk away. The taller young man stopped, reluctantly, without a word.

Glenn’s eyes were tightly shut, stinging with panicked tears from just moments ago.

“You and I...we—” he coughed into the dewy grass “—when we were younger, don’t you remember what we promised each other?”

Miklan did not leave, still. Glenn struggled to sit up, rubbing his bruising throat.

“Sylvain was born first. You said you’d be a good brother to him. And I said that I would be a good brother when I had a younger sibling,” he panted. “We promised that we would help each other to be the best brothers we could be.”

He turned to look in Miklan’s direction, and Miklan’s back was turned. His cloak was covered in dark, slick mud, and stray blades of grass.

“I never—”

“We pinky promised,” Glenn murmured, with a faint laugh. Miklan clenched his fists in the dim starlight. “And you are never to break pinky promises.”

“Shut up,” Miklan spat, suddenly, and he whirled around, his hazel eyes alight with pain. “Shut up! You think it’s so easy, loving your little brother, doting on him and everything. My brother is what’s going to destroy me. No part of me loves him.”

Glenn struggled to get to his feet, his heart racing. “What do you mean?”

Miklan glared at the young swordsman for an instant, then fixated on the grass when Glenn looked back. “...I’m crestless.”

Glenn blinked, then whispered very softly, “What’s so bad about that?”

Miklan raised his head, looking straight at Glenn. That was hard for him, nowadays. Glenn rarely ever saw him, other than when they bumped into each other in the marketplace. Miklan would nod, and Glenn would smile but would not receive one in return.

“Sylvain isn’t.”

Glenn understood now. Miklan lowered his gaze, which lost its hatred and instead assumed a dull resignation.

“He’ll become the heir. And I’ll just...I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

Glenn took a small step closer, his foot bumping against Miklan’s lamp.

“That’s why you don’t love him? Because he has something you do not?”

Miklan squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. “You don’t understand,” he growled. Glenn nearly grabbed his hand, but stamped his foot instead.

“How dare you say such a thing!” Miklan flinched, his shocked hazel gaze meeting Glenn’s own intense blue. Glenn was shorter, but the way Miklan looked at him, the lancer seemed like just a tiny child. “I don’t understand? I understand perfectly. In fact, I understand more than you understand.”

“What—”

“Sylvain is a child! He was born this way; his crest is something beyond his control, and yours, and your parents’. They did not choose for him to bear a crest, and they did not choose for you to be crestless. This is not his fault!”

“Glenn—”

“You’re selfish. You just want to be the heir because you’re the oldest, don’t you? You can’t just—”

“Glenn, stop!” Miklan begged, his voice breaking. There were tears in his eyes. Glenn took in a shuddering breath as one darted down Miklan’s cheek.

“I was right,” Miklan choked. “You don’t understand.” Glenn opened his mouth to protest, then closed it when Miklan continued.

“Of course I love him...I love him with all my heart. But so does my dad—and—and he doesn’t leave room in that stupid crested heart to love me…!”

Glenn’s heart twisted as Miklan, the strongest-willed, most fiery young man he ever knew, burst into tears under the watchful stars.

“He won’t talk to me anymore. Even if I yell curses at him, or throw things at him, all he’s ever done was hit me, or get a servant to drag me away.”

“You cursed and threw things at him?” Glenn whispered, and Miklan nodded, and there was shame in his watery eyes as he stared at the grass. between him and Glenn.

“I called him terrible things...I broke a vase on his shoulder. And he didn’t look once at me. Not since Sylvain was born.”

Glenn let his pinky brush Miklan’s wrist, and Miklan took his hand and squeezed it tightly as he spluttered on. 

“So I started to...oh, Goddess—I desecrated holy things, I carved hateful things into the side of his bedroom wall, but he just ordered people to paint over my protests, like he was just burying me, leaving me all alone.”

“Miklan,” Glenn breathed, and Miklan sniffled pitifully, all this bottled up hatred and sadness pouring out of him like water from a broken jug. 

“When I hurt Sylvain by accident, he yelled at me, told me not to touch him or else. So I hurt him on purpose. And my dad noticed me then. So I kept hurting him just so my dad would keep noticing me, and not act like I’m just a clump of lint in the corner, and now, I just—I can’t stop, because if I do—” Miklan stared into Glenn’s eyes, terrified and a mess of tears “—he’ll forget me again….

“And I don’t know what to do; I want Sylvain to be scared of me. So he doesn’t come back every day after I hurt him skipping and happy and asking me to go fishing with him or something, like normal brothers do, and cry like he’s never been hit before whenever I—” Miklan shook his head, hard, and tears flew left and right as he did so. “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just leave him alone? But—but then I’d be ignored again—”

“You’re not ignored,” Glenn told him, quietly. “I don’t ignore you.”

“You should,” Miklan blurted out. “I’m a disappointment, a violent creature with no reins to pull me back by, a mad beast….” It sounded as if he had been called those things before. Glenn’s eyes softened, and he lowered his glaze. “Starving for attention, for a beating. A masochist. A freak.”

“Who told you that?”

“My father.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Yes.”

Glenn squeezed his hand, taking the other that hung limply at Miklan’s side and holding it tightly, too. Those hands that had nearly choked him to death only minutes ago, had held him in place in the dirt like a worm, had twined a little finger with one of Glenn’s when they were children under a blanket fort to seal an eager promise.

“What will you do?” Glenn murmured.

Miklan stared at their hands wordlessly. He needed time to think.

“Is he okay?” he suddenly asked, his voice small and scared, soft and quiet like the cool night breeze that drifted past them in the darkness.

“Who...Sylvain?”

Miklan nodded.

“He’ll be all right. You didn’t break anything.” Miklan suddenly squeezed Glenn’s hands so hard the swordsman’s fingers nearly snapped.

“That’s not true….”

“It is! He just got scraped—”

“No, not...I mean...I did break something, just not on him. Our…” Miklan’s hands trembled. “...our promise…?”

Glenn found it in himself to smile a little. “We vowed to be better brothers, and to help each other as we went. I’m helping you to be better, that’s all,” he whispered.

Miklan’s hazel eyes glistened in the dim starlight, and he nodded slowly.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> so like yknow how felix and sylvain had their promise to live together till they die together
> 
> i hc that..,.glenn and miklan promised to be the best big brothers they could. and miklan broke it


End file.
